Play Silks!

I have wanted play silks for NINE years, since my oldest child was born. I was newly teaching at a little progressive school, and in searching out inspiration for classroom materials I stumbled into the Waldorf methods. You know where this is going. The soft, pastel wool. The nature tables. The solid wood. And of course, the flowing, brightly colored play silks. It's all so intoxicating, isn't it? Whether or not the method speaks to you, I have yet to meet someone who didn't fairly swoon at the set-up.

And truly, what they say about play silks is true. Kids do engage with them imaginatively, cleverly, and on many levels. They're great for kids with sensory needs. They're different from what most kids have at home, and so draw them in. And they're surprisingly durable. And for the Spirit Play classroom, they can be used

• in the church corner, as an altar play-thing;
• as dress-up clothes;
• as an underlay for certain stories; and
• as costume elements for skits.

But dang, are they expensive. It was one of those things where I always went to buy them, then said to myself, I can do that on my own for cheaper, then realized how much was involved in doing it for myself, then walked away to think about it another day. Nine years. Oy.

So, now motivated by making a set of silks for not only my own kids but the whole religious education program worth of kids, I did it!

Here's the process I used. I followed the instructions faithfully. If you don't feel like going to that link just yet, I'll tell you that the materials I needed were the plain white scarves, three primary color dyes, six mason jars, white vinegar, plastic measuring spoons, six wooden chopsticks, a big pot, and three small plastic cups.

Here are my jars a'boilin'.

And here are the silks. Aren't they yummy? The tie-dye effect was unintentional, and to tell truth, it works better on some of the silks than others. (Purple and peach it looks nice, green and yellow not so much, blue and pink I haven't decided.) But what happened was that I dyed large silks--30" ones--and they got bunched up a bit in the mason jars. I think next time, I'd either use bigger non-reactive containers for the large square scarves (such as half-gallon mason jars) or use the quart mason jars but make the dye a bit more concentrated and fill the jars higher with the solution. But this was my first time dying anything, so know that I'm offering my own trial-and-error methodology but no expertise.

So here is the breakdown of resources purchased. All materials were bought at Dharma Trading Co.

(6) 30" square silks for $4.85 each, totaling $29
acid dyes in primary colors of Caribbean blue, Deep magenta, and Sunflower yellow, totaling around $16
shipping was something like $8

That's $52 in materials. I had the big pot and the mason jars, but a 12-pack of mason jars cost about $12 if you had no glass or other non-reactive containers to work with. So we'll add that in and say we're up to $64.

It took me about 2 1/2 hours start to finish to make them.

So, for $64 and 2 1/2 hours, I got a nice set of silks to use for, naturally, open play in the Spirit Play classroom, but also for children's chapel altar decoration, as costume elements for the holiday pageant, and props and aids for games and other structured activities (the way bandanas are used in summer camps and youth cons and such).

 

Buying these online, I would have spent $96 or so, with six silks plus shipping. So right off the bat, that's a saving of $32. But it's still a rather expensive material, right? So here's what we can do. Make the materials stretch. You only use one tiny 1/2 tsp. of 2 oz. of dye. In other words, you have a ton left.

Ideas for the remainder of the dye:

Tie-dye church t-shirts that you all can wear to social justice and social witness events to represent your church.

Buy an extra set of scarves and dye them as teacher gifts (for about $5 per gift)

Gather some DRE friends and go in together on the dye materials and mason jars. With just one DRE friend, you can cut the total expenses by $18, so $46 for each of you rather than $64.

Set up all the materials yourself up at the church and invite congregants who want play silks at home to come and pay a small fee--maybe the price of the silk plus a few dollars. You could then show them how to use the silks for play and worship at home.

You could purchase extra silks or baby onesies or t-shirts to dye with the youth group and sell the finished products as a fundraiser. You could even get slightly fancy and stamp a chalice onto the garment using fabric ink or paint for a UU specific crowd.

Once we get these in the classroom and start using them, I'll post back again with pictures of specific uses.

I'm back! Baby boy and buying felt

Yay! I'm back to church after my summer furlough and maternity leave.

This was shortly before baby boy was born:

And here's baby boy a few days ago:

There. So now you are caught up! I've been back to work for two Sundays and was cheered to find that the Spirit Play classroom was clipping along with a schedule and activities that were working nicely. I hope this is the year that we can hold a retraining. My great hope is to present it to teachers and parents alike, pitching it as a classroom and homeschool/home worship method.

Meanwhile, I made use of a few JoAnns coupons and stocked up on underlay felt.

 This is something I have learned in the past year, to have on hand single yards of 72" recycled plastic felt--brand Ecofelt--in various colors, which JoAnn's sells for $4.99 a yard. Each yard yields 2 full 36" circular underlays, with ample scraps for other story elements. The neutral colors turned out to be the most useful, though the purple and dark blue are nice, too. Some of the bright colors that we thought we would end up color-coding with the rainbow Promise stories were just to hard to look at under the fluorescent lights of the classrooms, so we're moving away from that.

Not baskets, but boxes

The UU church in Plano, Texas uses plastic boxes in their classrooms instead of open baskets. I acquired some plastic boxes to try this out.

This is what I like about them:

• They are easy to clean
• They are easy to label
• They stack neatly and compactly on the shelf
• They are easy to transport around the room/church
• They close up, which might help all the pieces from any one story stay together
• They are inexpensive and easy to find at any big box store
• They seem very durable

 This is what I like about baskets:

• They are visually attractive individually and laid out side by side on the shelves
• They are made from natural materials
• They are open, inviting of interaction
• They come in many sizes, and being open on top, fit many materials without squishing
• If you don't insist that all your baskets match, they are inexpensive and easy to find at the thrift store

Here was my first run at using a plastic box. My main reason for wanting to try this was that labeling the baskets and keeping pieces together was a challenge this year. Also, the teachers suspected that the children did not interact much with the stories because they didn't remember which was which. I'm not sure we're going to want to switch over all the baskets, but I was thinking it might work to group the stories in baskets and plastic boxes. In this case, the "How Stories Began" story, which is listed as a Source story--Wonder and Awe--could be one of several Source stories all kept in plastic boxes and grouped together on one shelf, at least while we try out this new way of storing and organizing stories.

Tabletop labyrinth

We are just finishing up our small "Ways to Pray" unit, and adding this lovely tabletop finger labyrinth to the classroom was our final lesson. (We bought it a few towns over, at the art center, for $24. It is ceramic, and about 12" by 12") The children love it, and negotiating the sharing of it during our limited work time has been interesting.

We have a dedicated RE "hour" (really 45 minutes) before service. But many of the children arrive late which, while it does not impact the start time, sometimes keeps us from establishing an easy rhythm to the gathering circle first thing. So some weeks we are left with only about 10 minutes for the children to work with the stories and supplies. It may be that next year, we work more mornings into the year's schedule where we simply enjoy being gathered together, get to know the offerings of our classroom, feast, and talk about life. We've had a few of those this year, and they were well received, too.

Just last week I sat in on a webinar about the "Flipped Classroom," which refers to a model of education where the adults prime and privilege what the children bring to the exchange, and the content mostly derives from the pupils rather than the teachers (though it works well when the teachers "seed" the conversation with ahead-of-time suggested resources, discussion topics for home, or fun little assignments). Many in the webinar immediately though of Spirit Play, and there was much discussion about how this is already done to a great degree in Spirit Play and how it could be done more.

Fabric Finger Labyrinth

I've been having insomnia lately, so I put it to good use last night and gave a go at making a small, plush finger labyrinth. It's definitely a prototype--quite a few things I botched or would do differently next time--but overall I think the idea has a lot of potential. 

I drew a basic three-turn labyrinth pattern onto fabric, did split-stitch embroidery over all the lines, then sewed on a backing and stuffed it with two layers of quilt batting. The size seems just about right, though it would be fun to experiment with other labyrinth patterns. And the level of "squishiness" seemed right, too, but I need to call my mom to ask her how to stuff it so that the batting stays even and doesn't shift around.

My thought was that this could either be used well as a during-service focusing/fidgeting activity, in the church corner (perhaps most appropriate if church actually has a labyrinth on the grounds), or on the Ways to Pray shelf with the prayer beads, prayer cards, zen garden tray, meditation jar, and anything else that's there. For older kids who are into it, it would actually make a nice afternoon multigenerational workshop, too, with instruction and support on embroidery and/or machine sewing.

Embroidery for Beginners

A quick share:

A small, child-friendly beginning embroidery kit that can be held in the lap during church service. Large, plastic tapestry needle. Embroidery floss wound neatly on cardboard spools. Round-tipped scissors. Big-holed burlap. Wee hoop. Basket just the size to sit in a child's lap. Two or three such kits (or more, for a bigger church) could be stacked together in the foyer or just outside the sanctuary in a specially designated area for kids to get and put back themselves.

Update:

Adults and children alike have fully embraced this during-service activity, and have even worked collaboratively on a design over several Sundays! The adults seem tickled that they are "allowed" to do this, too. A friend of mine, Joy, reminded me that there is good brain science that backs up the theory that having something creative and repetitive to do with one's hands helps some to focus. This can help some church leaders to be convinced of the fitness of this offering for our Sunday services.

Weaving with CD Looms

Here's a new work choice for the Spirit Play classroom or a quiet lap-activity to work on during service: CD loom weaving.

There is a good tutorial here, as well as many colorful examples using fun and funky yarn and colors. I included a selection of colors in each box and basket, each piece about 3 feet long, and a 3x5 card with brief instructions on the back.  (I forgot to include the round-tipped child scissors in the box pictured, but they'd go in, too, so that the kids would have everything they needed at the ready.)

Here is one way to write out the instructions:

  

• ·         Move the shuttle over, under, over, under the warp yarn, or the lines going out from the center of the circle.
• ·         When you want to change colors, cut the old yarn, leaving a little tail that you can tuck in later.
• ·         Then, tie the new yarn with a small knot to the next closest warp string. Tie the other end of the new yarn to   the back of the shuttle.
• ·         Continue in your over, under, over, under pattern.
• ·         When you finish, tie your last bit of yarn to the warp string.
• ·         Remember, there is no wrong way to do this. The learning is everything.
• ·         Keep your weaving, or donate it to the church to use as a glare interrupter to help songbirds not crash into our windows. Thanks!

 It would be great to have picture instructions, too, for pre-readers.

At first, I thought we might build up a stash of these that could be used as glare interrupters to help songbirds not fly into our windows. But I'll have to get a couple of samples up and view them from outside to see if they work that way. They're lovely as art pieces just the same, and could be an all-the-time work choice or could be a special work choice along with a Grandmother Spider story or with the book "Extra Yarn," which is about a little girl who has a never-ending supply of yarn that she uses to knit for all her friends, neighbors, and even enemies.

Lap Geoboards

Geoboards are another homeschooling favorite that translate well to the interactive, multi-modal, free-choice R.E. classroom (such as Spirit Play!), or even as a during-service, quiet, independent activity for younger children.

We'll likely use them as the latter in our church, because that is where there is the greatest present need for some creativity.

These were super easy to make. Took me about four hours total, from store shopping to finished product.

Here are the supplies for making a set of 4:

(4) 7x9 inch blank pine plaque, $2-3 each
pushpins, $3-4 for a pack of 200
30-pack of colorful, no-snag hair elastics, $3-4

I looked up a one-inch grid online, then put a blank piece of paper onto my computer screen and made dots on the paper, enough to fit on my plaque.

I laid the piece of paper over my plaque and felt around the edges, trying to get the dots pretty well centered on the plaque. With a wee bit of ease around the edges, I ended up with 6 by 8 one-inch dots.

Once the dot paper was well positioned, I took one pushpin and pushed through the paper and a little bit into the wood, which made the marks exactly where they needed to be. I did this for all the dots, being careful not to shift the paper. (You could also actually push in a pin or two at the corners to be sure your paper won't slip.)

Then, I took off the paper and pushed individual pins in by hand where I saw the marks. I will admit, my thumb got pretty sore! That's a lot of pins by your 3rd or 4th geoboard. Some pins were harder than others to push in (especially those around a knot in the wood), so I used a hammer to come afterward and gently tap all of them down flush. You have to be careful, though, because I got a little carried away with one and broke the plastic off the top of the pin, and it was a doozy getting that sucker pried back up with a butter knife. So gentle as it goes with the hammer.

My hope is to put the geoboard and a set of six or so colored bands in small baskets that kids could take as they enter the sanctuary and then have in their laps during service. I can see some potential pitfalls here--if kids tried to pry up the pushpins (very hard to do, but possible) and if kids used the geoboards like slingshots to zip the elastics all over (which was the second thing my kids did with them, after making pictures of swords). But, like anything else, we'll assume the best and most creative use of the materials, help the kids understand how to act in ways that are kind to those around them while sharing a space, and be patient as they learn and grow.

New things!

Maybe one of the best things I've discovered about the Spirit Play classroom thus far (and granted, it has been in use a grand total of one Sunday!) is how excited I and the teachers are about what is new and different each week.

I think the best environments and education setting for children mix known, familiar, and beloved ritual and structure with a frequently changing collection of interesting things to touch, play with, see, do, and talk about. In Montessori, the familiar setting and structure is called the "prepared classroom." In homeschooling, the frequently changing objects of curiosity and conversation starters are introduced through "strewing," leaving them in places children are likely to find them on their own and pick them up (or sometimes not--no attachment there to a specific outcome). Spirit Play mixes these techniques, and it is So Very Much Fun to be on the lookout for ways to enrich the experience of Sunday School for the children.

This week, I took my own two kids to the Mulberry River for a swim, and whilst poking around on the shore, I found these treasures to add to the observation tray:

Salt Tray with Religious Symbols

Salt trays are popular on the homeschooling and Montessori sites these days. The idea is that children can copy a picture, letter, number, etc. using a finger, chopstick, q-tip, or the like, enjoying the tactile experience while learning how to form the new symbol. It's a little different, highly adaptable, and erases like magic when you gentle shake the tray (kind of like an Etch-A-Sketch!).

I'd seen a very simple one here, done with alphabet letters, and adapted the same idea to religious symbols, examples of which I painted in watercolor on thick watercolor paper.

The tray is a repurposed Melissa and Doug tray that once held a letter puzzle. These are pretty easy to find at thrift stores, but I bet many parents of young kids right now would have one they'd be willing to pass along.

The salt isn't very thickly poured--just enough to fully cover the bottom, and so that when one draws with the finger, the design goes through to the bottom of the tray. (Some people paint the bottom of the tray for better contrast. That looks nice, I think, but takes more time than I wanted to spend on this.)

The watercolor paper is cut down to fit in the small side of the tray. There are religious symbols on both sides, so 12 total.

In the Spirit Play classroom, this could be a special worktime choice during a world religions lesson, or to correspond with a churchwide interfaith endeavor. It could also sit alongside the finger labyrinth on a shelf dedicated to kinesthetic work, available at any time.